We're Fighting the Feds Over Your Email

Governments want the right to see email stored anywhere in the world. Microsoft says not so fast.

By

Brad Smith

Updated July 29, 2014 7:35 p.m. ET

On Thursday Microsoft will oppose the U.S. government at a hearing in federal court in New York, arguing that it can't force American tech companies to turn over customer emails stored exclusively in company data centers in other countries. This dispute should be important to you if you use email, because it could well turn on who owns your email—you or the company that stores it in the cloud.

In December the government sent Microsoft a search warrant seeking a consumer's emails as part of a narcotics investigation. While...